Between Two Worlds
by Lynzee005
Summary: The Fringe team discovers that not everything is as it seems in the pristine town of Twin Peaks, Washington...
1. Chapter 1

_It was a dream Olivia had been having, in one form or another, for years. She was so familiar with the rooms, their colours and layout, the types of furniture and where they were placed. She could have drawn it in her sleep…_

_She always started off walking down a long hallway, painted in a shade approaching avocado green but not quite making it there, stuck somewhere between mint and chartreuse. She ran a hand along the wall. It was freezing cold. She shivered and continued to walk._

_At the far end of the hallway, a set of double doors stood open. The cool green walls gave way to the rich velvet of fine drapery in crimson cast. She could hear music playing; it seemed to come out from between the drapes. As she approached, the lights above her head began to flicker, randomly at first and then with the kind of pulsing regularity that screamed out with intelligent intent at its source._

_Still, bravely undeterred, she continued to walk._

_The curtains were within her grasp. Pushing her way through, she paused only once in the strobe-lit hallway, the music filling the space around her, before shoving the panels aside and entering the room. A white and black zig-zag floor and red curtains all the way around, it reminded her of a school yard joke—"What's white and black and red all over?"—but she didn't laugh. _

_She expected to see the man but, instead, in the middle of the room stood a woman; young-looking, with tears in her eyes. She wore a black dress that hung heavy on her petite frame; her hair was styled and curled around her face, beautifully even, but she seemed so sad. Olivia reached for her, hoping to help, but as the woman opened her mouth to speak, no words came out; her lips, forming a perfect, ruby-red 'O', let forth the most bone-chillingly fierce shrieks Olivia had ever heard. _

_Frightened, Olivia tried to turn and run. But her feet remained rooted to the floor… _

* * *

"Agent Farnsworth, have you ever gone fly fishing?"

Dr. Walter Bishop lumbered from the bunsen burner to the table, carrying a beaker of coffee in his gloved hands. He poured it into a mug with the periodic table of elements printed on it, grasped it with both hands, and took a gulp.

Astrid Farnsworth, knowing full well what she had just cleaned out of those beakers that morning, grimaced as she watched him drink. "Walter, I bought you a coffee maker, remember?"

He gaped at her for a moment before speaking. "Well…yes, yes, but there's something about the process that unsettles me. This—" he motioned to his mug with a smile, "This is a thing of perfection."

Astrid shrugged and continued to fiddle with the laptop computer in front of her. "Well, to answer your question: no. I have never gone fly fishing."

"It is exhilarating," Walter continued. "You must try it."

Astrid smiled. "One day, Walter," she told him. With a final click, she sat up and cracked her fingers. "But until then, I suggest you get familiar with your email inbox."

Walter screwed up his face. "I don't know why I need an email account."

"You've had one for as long as you've been working here."

He shot her a puzzled look. "I have?"

She nodded. "Yes. And it's full. And people are sending you information requests and having their messages bounced back to them undeliverable _because_ it's full, and Agent Broyles is getting an earful about it. So, he asked me to help you learn." She smiled at him, sympathy on her face. " Really, it's not such a bad thing to be connected. Or to at least check in once in a while."

Walter's face softened and he took another big gulp from his coffee mug before trudging over to the computer and peering into the screen. "What do I do?"

Astrid smile. "Well, I've already deleted all the old emails. But you should learn how to check and read and reply to them so that, from now on, you'll have a means of communication that fits better with the twenty-first century."

Walter scowled at Astrid's sly dig, but he sat down beside her, coffee mug in hand, awaiting his tutorial.

"Now, when you get an email—" Astrid began, cut off as the screen refreshed and a new email popped up in the inbox. "Hey, whaddya know?"

"Who is it from?" Walter asked.

Astrid glanced at the 'From' line. "Doctor Lawrence Jacoby."

"Ah!" Walter beamed, pulling on the laptop screen so it faced him. "He's an old friend of mine! How does he know my email address?"

Astrid laughed and showed Walter how to click on the link that opened the text of the email, then set about tidying up while Walter read the correspondence. "Don't touch anything," she instructed. "I'll show you how to reply when you're finished. You know how to type, don't you?" The question seemed simple, but Astrid was unsettled. "Oh dear…I don't know if I can teach you to type…"

But Walter was silent. His eyes misted with concern and as he peered through his glasses at the screen, he inched forward in his seat.

"Walter?" Astrid asked. "Is everything okay?"

Walter nodded but couldn't tear his eyes from the message. "Agent Farnsworth, be a dear and get Peter on the phone…"

* * *

FBI Special Agent Olivia Dunham walked a few steps behind Peter Bishop as they entered the Harvard lab where Peter's father had set up shop.

"What's cooking?" Peter asked.

"I made coffee…" Walter offered, helpfully.

Peter sighed. "I meant it figuratively but…okay, I guess I deserved that."

"Walter," Olivia tried, "Astrid said you needed us here?"

"Oh!" Walter said. "Yes. I received an email today—"

"An email?" Peter glanced at Astrid. "You finally taught him how to use his email?"

Astrid smiled. "I'm not just a pretty face, Peter."

"Clearly," he jabbed his thumb in her direction and winked at Olivia. "You guys should put her on the hunt for Bigfoot."

Olivia grinned, but her mind was distracted by whatever it was that Walter initially needed them for. "Walter?"

"Yes. Right. The email was from an old friend, Doctor Lawrence Jacoby. We went to school together—he studied neuroscience, and I studied biochemistry, but we were in the same fraternity and—" he shook his head, cutting himself off before anyone else did. "He has a psychiatric practice in Washington State. He emailed me today because there has been an…" he trailed off, flicking his fingers with excitement as he searched for the words or the phrase to use to explain himself. "Well," he finally spoke, "There's been a rather unusual death."

"Why would he contact you?" Peter asked. "Or do small town psychiatrists always take it upon themselves to investigate suspicious deaths?"

"He knows I'm involved with the FBI, for starters."

"But deaths, no matter how suspicious, don't usually fall under the purview of the FBI," Peter countered.

"Yes, yes, I know," Walter's huffed. "But it's the _nature _of the death that interests me."

Olivia narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean by that?"

Walter's eyes gleamed. "The girl was, by all accounts, _frightened_ to death."

"Frightened," Peter restated. "To death."

"Precisely," Walter said. "By someone, or something, three days ago in a supermarket in this town. And," he added, "It's not the first time this has happened. Twenty years ago, the very same thing…"

Peter stood up from his perch on the edge of the lab bench. "I still don't see the relevance—"

"Peter," Walter's voice was serrated. "Listen to me. The body weighed eighty pounds after her death. From over one-thirty to eighty." He took a deep breath, trying to force himself to calm down. "It's as if half of her disappeared the moment she died."

Olivia glanced at Peter and then back at Walter. "You say this happened before?"

"Yes," Walter said, excited. "And the FBI was involved at that time. There should be records."

Olivia was already halfway out the door. "I'll talk to Broyles."

* * *

Special Agent Philip Broyles steepled his fingers and eyed Olivia curiously. "And you think this is something worthy of our time? Considering everything else we have on our plate?"

"I know it's a stretch, sir, but yes I feel there's a connection."

He looked down at his desk. "I'm surprised you have this information so quickly. We were only just notified an hour ago."

Olivia shifted from one foot to the other. "The fact that you were notified should say something, shouldn't it?"

Broyles seemed unconvinced. "How did you hear about it?"

"Walter is friends with a psychiatrist out there, and this doctor contacted him this afternoon."

Broyles nodded. "Well this psychiatrist's information is impeccable. He should be working for us."

Olivia managed a half-grin. "Can I have it, sir?"

"Why do you want it so bad?"

Olivia wavered. She considered telling him about the dreams, about the way they'd started when she was a first-year recruit at the Academy, about how she felt whenever she woke up following her visions, like there was something she had been tasked to do. Instead, she swallowed the words away.

"I know this case. When the rest of my cohort were studying serial killers like Bundy and Dahmer and Manson, I pored over every resource I could get my hands on trying to understand this very case. Missing FBI agents, murdered prom queens—it was like a soap opera. And the hints of the occult, references to spirits and portals…the city has its own mythology, rooted in the stories of the Native Americans and the very land itself…"

When it didn't appear that Broyles was particularly moved, Olivia tried a different tack.

"What if there was more to it than simply murder? What if there was a…supernatural element to it? This place could be related to the Pattern we've been seeing."

"You believe that?"

Olivia stabbed a finger at the file on Broyles' desk. "How do you explain the weight loss? The cause of death? Extreme fright?" She stood up again. "Does that sound like a normal case to you?"

Broyles looked down at the page.

"There was another woman. Twenty years ago," Olivia said. "Same thing."

Broyles leaned back in his chair. "I can give you a week. Nine days, tops. But if anything bigger comes up, I'm pulling you back. No questions."

Olivia nodded, hiding her joy. "Agreed. Thank you sir."

"Be careful," he said as she left his office. "I hear you're likely to drown from all the rain up there this time of year."

Olivia grinned and pressed her phone to her ear. Peter picked up after the first ring.

"What's the deal?"

"Pack your bags," she said. "We're heading to Twin Peaks."


	2. Chapter 2

The man in the loud Hawaiian shirt who greeted them at the Spokane airport sported a wild mop of salt and pepper hair and a large grin, which he reserved for Walter as the two friends spotted each other across the surprisingly busy concourse. He stood beneath a large, illuminated 'Welcome to Spokane' sign and he was wearing two different coloured socks within his leather loafers.

"Walt Bishop! Aloha!" Jacoby declared as he pitched his arms around Walter's shoulders. "What's it been—thirty years?"

"Aloha," Walter writhed, uncomfortable with the sudden proximity but trying hard to be polite. "Lawrence, this is my son, Peter."

Jacoby stretched out his hand and shook Peter's. "Pleasure!"

"Nice to meet you," Peter offered.

"And this," Walter motioned to Olivia, "Is this team's _raison d'être_: Special Agent Olivia Dunham."

Jacoby pulled his glasses off his nose and took Olivia's hand in his. "My my. The last FBI Agent I saw…well, he didn't look like this."

Peter stifled a chuckle. "She's a hell of a lot more than a pretty face."

Olivia shook the doctor's hand. "It's a pleasure," she said. "I read a paper you wrote once, about Transcendental Meditation and pain management in patients with post-traumatic stress disorder. Fascinating research."

He leaned into her. "I like to think so. But the medical establishment is less inclined to jump on _that _bandwagon!" he laughed "Come on, let's get moving!"

Bags in hand, they ambled through the terminal, always a handful of steps behind Jacoby, who raced ahead, waving his hands as he talked to no one but himself. What they lacked in speed getting out of the terminal was made up on the drive: up the winding, narrow mountain highways between the city and the town, a two hour drive north of Spokane in some of the most up-and-down terrain Olivia had ever experienced.

"So what more can you tell us about what happened, Doctor Jacoby?" Olivia asked, once conversation about the native flora and fauna of the area had ceased.

"I hardly know where to start," Jacoby replied. "The young woman—she's not really young, I suppose, but everyone younger than me is young, right?—she was doing her grocery shopping a few days ago when _BLAMMO! _Shrieked like she'd been shot and dropped stone cold dead right there in the canned vegetable aisle." He was still waving his hands and used his knee to control the steering wheel. "She pulled half a shelf of creamed corn down with her when she fell. Poor thing," he clucked his tongue. "She hadn't had an easy life, you know."

"What do you mean?" Olivia said, scribbling in her notepad.

"She was the much younger sister of a town beauty—the first Miss Twin Peaks winner back in the Sixties—raised by a rather cold mother. A real piece of work. No father figure to speak of. First chance she got to split, she did: went off to join a nunnery."

"You can do that still?" Peter asked, incredulous.

"As long as the world needs nuns, I suppose," Jacoby shrugged. "Annie—that's her name, Annie Blackburne—she came back to Twin Peaks about twenty years ago. Moved in with her sister, got a job at the diner. Then she won the Miss Twin Peaks pageant herself. But things went downhill pretty quickly after that."

"How so?"

"Well," Jacoby took a deep breath, "She was kidnapped by the former partner of the FBI agent who was sent here to investigate the first round of murders—the prom queen and her cousin. Annie was then taken to a strange place she could neither comprehend nor properly identify, and released back into the world only to suffer from delusions, nightmares, severe exhaustion, fertility issues—" he paused. "She moved into her sister's attic apartment and more or less withdrew from public life. Poor girl only went out on Sundays to church and Wednesdays to do her grocery shopping."

Peter let out a low whistle.

"How do you know all of this?" Olivia asked.

"Annie was a patient of mine," he said, winking at her in the rearview mirror. "I respect doctor-patient confidentiality, but I've been down this road enough times with you law enforcement types to know that when it comes to criminal investigations all bets are off."

Olivia managed the barest of smiles. "These murders," she continued. "How do you know so much about them?"

"You've never lived in a small town, have you darlin'?" he asked with a wry smirk.

"Can't say that I have."

He shrugged. "Well, word gets around. Especially things of this nature." He swallowed. "Harry Truman still runs things down at the Sheriff's station; I'd ring him up and pick his brain if you need more info. And you can always track down Agent Cooper—"

"Agent Cooper?" Olivia asked. "The FBI Agent?"

"Right-o! He was the _second_ Fed to make his way up here, after Laura Palmer was killed, rest her soul," Jacoby squirmed in his seat. "He was there when Annie went missing, watching the pageant. In fact, he went up there after her. To the woods." He lowered his voice to sharing-a-secret levels. "Strange things happen in the woods, you know."

"How do I reach him?" Olivia asked. "I thought he retired."

"Oh he did retire, but he stuck around. Bought a place up the mountain from town," Jacoby sighed. "Not a very social guy, which is a shame. I liked him a lot. But I suppose after everything he's gone through he's earned the right to some privacy."

Olivia nodded. "We'll need to see the body," she said.

Peter piped up. "Is it true she only weighed about eighty pounds upon her death?"

Jacoby raised his right hand. "God's honest truth," he said. "Eighty three-point-five pounds. Same thing happened to Josie Packard twenty-odd years ago. If I could explain it, I would, but—"

"Well how much does the soul weigh?" Walter interjected.

Jacoby turned to look at his friend, and Peter and Olivia, after sharing a glance across the car, sat a bit straighter against the seat backs.

Walter glanced around him in the car and smiled awkwardly, directing their attention to the window and away from him. "What kind of trees are these again, Lawrence? Lodgepole pine?"

Jacoby took the bait. "Douglas fir," he said. "The granddaddy of the Pacific Northwest timber family…"


	3. Chapter 3

Calhoun Memorial Hospital in Twin Peaks, Washington was a small, underfunded, and woefully understaffed place that had clearly seen better days. The morgue in the basement of the building was dimly lit and set on faulty motion sensors in order to save on electricity costs; whole wings were frequently pitched into complete darkness at the most random intervals completely unrelated to the movement in any of the rooms, which lent the area an unease that Olivia couldn't quite stomach.

Olivia normally enjoyed the grittier aspects of her job, such as the examinations that Walter frequently performed, but this time she only stayed around long enough to do a once-over of the body of Miss Blackburne.

The woman, in her mid-forties, was average height and, pre-death, of average build. Her hair was blonde, curly, with hints of grey starting to peek out at the temples. She had fair skin, a childish appearance owing to her round cheeks and the lack of wrinkles around her eyes or mouth. Indeed, if she didn't know better, Olivia might have thought the young woman to be in her mid-to-late twenties, not nearing middle age. She was wearing a simple dress at the time of her death; her purse contained the bare essentials for a woman on a shopping trip—her wallet, house keys, a tube of Lipsyl, a notebook in which her shopping list was scribbled down in an impeccable and studied hand, and two individually wrapped peppermint candies.

Nothing especially remarkable stood out about her, which made her extraordinary death that much more remarkable by comparison.

Annie's personal effects had been placed in a brown sack and left in a box opposite the cooler where her body had been placed prior to the official autopsy. Olivia requested that the items be sent to her once she had a place to work; then, with one final glance at the body, she excused herself.

Peter followed her out of the room. "What's up?" he asked.

"Yeah," she nodded. "It's just there's a lot of work to do and—"

The lights flickered again and Olivia tensed. Peter reached for her. "Liv, is everything okay?"

She closed her eyes and nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine. I just…I have a not-so-nice feeling down here. That's all."

Peter glanced around. "I can't say I blame you," he offered. "But look, I'm starved. Let me buy you a cup of coffee and some lunch. We can discuss strategy."

"What about Walter?"

Peter shrugged. "You know how he gets when he's like this: focused and determined. He's not going anywhere." As if on cue, the sound of uproarious laughter coming from the autopsy room and the two doctors within it filtered into the hallway. "Besides, there's only so much of the good Doctor Jacoby that I can take right now..."

Olivia smiled. "Well all right then."

As they began to walk down the corridor towards the service elevator, they were met by the imposing figure of a man in what appeared to be park ranger regalia, sporting a cowboy hat, and carrying a badge. "You must be the FBI," he drawled, his voice booming as it echoed down the dark parts of the hallway.

Olivia braced herself for a fight. "Yes, and you are—?"

The man stepped into the lighted part of the hallway; Olivia saw he wore a smile, his hand stretched out towards her. "Harry S Truman, Sheriff of Twin Peaks," he shook their hands with vigour. "And I couldn't be happier to have you here."

Olivia and Peter exchanged glances. "That's not exactly the kind of reception we're used to getting when we show up, Sheriff Truman," Peter offered.

"Yeah, that's what Cooper said when he got here too," Truman said, pulling off his hat and running his hand back through his greying hair.

"You were Sheriff back in 1989?" Olivia asked.

"Then, and now, and for all the years in between," he said with half a laugh. "I just keep getting elected…even when I don't run."

Olivia ignored the grumbling protestations of her half-empty stomach and smiled at the Sheriff. "I'd love to talk to you, get your perspective on what happened."

The Sheriff shrugged. "Don't know what more I can tell you that isn't already in the file," he said.

Olivia countered. "It's routine, mostly."

"Well, I was just on my way in to meet with Doctor Jacoby," he said with a casual nod towards Olivia's still rumbling stomach. "But what say we meet up right afterwards. The Double R Diner? Half an hour?"

"Sure," Peter said. "That sounds fine. Thank you."

"You're welcome," Sheriff Truman replied through a smile as he adjusted his hat again on his head and ambled into the examination room.

* * *

The Double R Diner was filled nearly to capacity as Olivia and Peter sat down in the only available booth large enough for three people, and was positively packed by the time Sheriff Truman joined them ten minutes later. They talked about general goings on—the lunch special captivated Peter and Truman for a solid five minutes, Olivia noted wryly—and enjoyed their lunch before the conversation began to turn to more serious matters.

Peter almost ordered a second slice of pie when Olivia produced the case files she had pulled in preparation for the case, which she was preparing to share with Peter. He wiped his hands on the napkin and pushed his plate away with a barely audible groan.

"Go ahead," Olivia said without looking up from the files. "Order another."

Peter considered but eventually shook his head. "You're an enabler, you know that?"

Olivia teased out a grin as she handed him the first file. "Teresa Banks," she said, "Murdered February 9, 1988. Just over a year later, Laura Palmer was found murdered." She handed him Laura's file, followed by a third. "Little less than a month after that, Madeleine Ferguson, Laura's cousin, found murdered beneath Whitetail Falls."

Peter glanced at the files. "Three murders in just over a year. For a small town like this it must have really hurt," he said, taking in the last of his coffee.

Sheriff Truman nodded. "There's no nice way of putting it, but at one point there I was so sick of writing up incident reports about murder and assaults, I seriously considered hanging up my gun and handing over my badge," he sighed. "You just don't see stuff like that in these small towns. Property disputes and traffic violations, sure. But murder?"

"Is that why the Feds were brought in?" Peter asked.

"I'm not gonna lie, the thought crossed my mind the moment we pulled Laura's body from the water. If not the Feds, than maybe some reinforcements from the big city." Truman tapped his hand on the Palmer file. "But when Laura went missing, so did another school mate of hers. Ronette Pulaski. She wandered over into Idaho, crossing state lines…"

"And right into the FBI's jurisdiction," Peter nodded. "So there were two agents sent here?"

Olivia shook her head. "Not at the same time, no. Teresa Banks's murder was investigated by Agent Desmond. Chester Desmond. He went missing a few days after arriving in this part of the state. Nobody has seen or heard from him since."

"And the second guy?" Peter asked. "Did he just spirit away too?"

"FBI Special Agent Dale Bartholomew Cooper," Olivia said, taking a fourth file out from her briefcase and thumbing through it. "Exemplary agent. Rose through the ranks faster than anyone had before him. An impressive track record." She handed him the file.

"Finest law man I've ever had the pleasure to work alongside," Truman said, a deadly serious tone in his voice. "And I don't dilly dally with hyperbole like that. I mean it. He was one of the best."

Peter traced Agent Cooper's name on the file tab. "D.B. Cooper?" he scoffed. "Come on, Liv. That's gotta be a joke, right?"

She stared at him blankly, and he sighed.

"I guess you missed Conspiracy Theory Day at Quantico."

Olivia's eyes dropped to Cooper's truncated personnel file as she continued to thumb through it. "The case is so fascinating. I mean, there's so little to go on, but it's clear that _something_ happened to Agent Cooper the night of March 26, 1989, and it affected him deeply. Enough to make him quit his job less than a month later."

Truman nodded his assent. "I'd seen enough in that month to believe that we had been staring down something truly evil that night at the Grove. It changed all of us. Not a day goes by when I don't think about those cases and what happened."

"Before that," Peter interrupted. "This Agent Cooper…did he make any headway in the case?"

"Yeah," Truman said. "He had his own brand of…sleuthing, let's call it. And it worked, since we got our man." Truman lowered his voice. "Laura's own father, Leland Palmer. Cooper got him to confess to the whole thing."

Peter made a face, as if he'd just eaten rotten garbage. "Jesus…"

"It gets worse," Truman said. "He was possessed by an evil spirit. It had been inhabiting Mr. Palmer's body for years, decades maybe, forcing him to rape and terrorize his daughter in secret, while he systematically drugged his wife to keep her from finding out."

Peter closed the file in front of him. "Wow," he said, raising a hand in jest. "Check please?"

Olivia scoffed and continued. "Agent Cooper was summarily framed for drug smuggling and a host of international infractions involving an unauthorized police raid into Canada that he spear-headed."

"That's when Cooper's crazy ex-partner showed up," Truman added.

"Okay, I'll bite," Peter said, clearly overwhelmed by the turn the story had taken. "What's the story there?"

"There was…bad blood between them," Truman interjected. "Coop's partner—Windom Earle was his name—had been institutionalized for a few years following the murder of his wife. He blamed Cooper for her death. I guess that's how he justified taking his aggression out on the town."

"Agent Earle kidnapped Annie Blackburne the night she won the Miss Twin Peaks pageant," Olivia said softly.

"That would have been an easy enough end to the story, but then we went up to the woods." Truman swallowed against the lump in his throat. "I watched Coop walk into that clearing and disappear behind a curtain that just materialized out of thin air. Like a mirage. He followed Agent Earle and Annie, and he reemerged hours later with her. No Agent Earle. In fact, nobody ever saw Earle again."

Olivia sat up straight. "Agent Cooper never recovered, and apparently neither did Annie." She locked her hands together on the tabletop. "If there's one thing all the people involved in this case keep saying, it's that there's something in the woods…"

Truman pushed the brim of his hat up a half niche and leaned back in his seat. "People here have known that for generations," he told them. "It's something you grow up with, without question. If nothing else, there's a healthy respect for the natural world here that you don't find in many other places. It's just the law of the land."

"So let me get this straight," Peter said. "We're not just here looking for a reason why Annie Blackburne died, but also what the hell is going on in the woods?"

The question was levelled at Olivia, but Truman answered it. "If you can," he said.

Olivia looked down at the manila folders under her hands. "I guess if we're going to get started we should cross-reference a list of witnesses, friends and relatives, people who were involved with Annie or Agent Cooper or had experiences in the woods."

"That's damn near the whole town, Agent Dunham," Truman remarked, casting himself deep in thought. "But I guess if I had to start anywhere, it'd be with Norma—Annie's sister—and Norma's husband, Ed Hurley," he paused, thinking. "Annie didn't have a lot of friends in town, but Shelly Briggs is the closest you'll get. She and her husband Bobby live on the other side of town."

Olivia wrote the names and addresses down in her notebook as Truman recited them. "Any one else who might have insight into the case? Friends of Laura's? People who knew Madeleine? Agent Cooper's? Any sheriff's deputies or state troopers?"

Truman continued to wrack his brain. "Donna Hurley was Laura's best friend when they were in high school. She married Big Ed's nephew a few years after everything calmed down. You should talk to Garland Briggs. He's a retired Air Force man. May be able to help as well. He was involved in some highly classified investigations into the secrets of the woods. Are you familiar with Project Blue Book?"

Peter stared incredulously between Olivia and Sheriff Truman. Truman, undeterred, forged ahead.

"Apart from that, you'll have full access to my staff, our offices, whatever you need." He paused. "And then I suppose you'll be needing to speak with Coop."

Olivia nodded. "It would be standard operating procedure, yes."

Truman was silent for a while. "He's a bit reclusive these days. Small wonder, I suppose," he cleared his throat. "We were friends once upon a time but we…lost touch, is one way of putting it." He drummed his fingers on the table top for a moment before continuing. "Could I join you when you went up to talk to him?"

"Of course," Olivia replied with a curt nod and a smile.

"Thank you."

"No, thank you. You've been so accommodating," Olivia said as she finished writing up the names and information in the notebook. "It's much appreciated."

"We're grateful to have you on board," he said as he pushed himself out of the booth and put down some money on the table top. When Olivia proceeded to object, he shook his head. "It's the least I can do. And Mr. Bishop, order that second slice of pie, before they run out. They _always_ run out."

Peter nodded and smiled. "Will do, Sheriff."

"Have a nice day," he told them, before turning and walking out of the diner.

Peter stared after him for a long while before turning back to Olivia. "Is this for real? Does this place really exist?"

Olivia closed her notebook and stacked the file folders neatly on the table in front of her. "It's quaint."

"He knew everyone's address from memory," Peter pointed out.

"It's a small town, Peter," Olivia reminded him. "They make it a habit to know everything about everyone."

Peter shivered. "It's a little too _Stepford Wives_-y for me," he said. "Small towns and their dark underbellies…"

Olivia glanced back at her list of names. "You busy this afternoon?" she asked.

"Not especially," he replied. "I should get Walter settled before I do anything though."

She nodded. "I think I'd like to get started on these interviews as soon as possible…"


End file.
